An open-air museum of Soviet occupation is a part of “decomunization” state program

Kyiv city administration voted for the bill on Museum of Soviet occupation, but the place for it is not found yet. One of the MPs who wrote the bill Oleh Hariaha said: “My first thought was the area around the Motherland Monument, a Soviet symbol; there is a USSR emblem on the shield. But this idea was postponed because this monument is a state property. Another idea was the territory of the National Complex Expocenter of Ukraine, but it is also owned by the state. Another option is an abandoned area of 15 ha on the outskirts of Kyiv. We could make a landscape park there”.The MPs also claimed that it is possible to find an investor, but the number of exhibits is unknown yet.“I am sure that we should be very careful with removing symbols of the Soviet era. Many Soviet monuments and elements on the buildings have the architectural and historical value. Our children should study history including, from such monuments as well. Who does not remember his history, he has no future," stated Oleh Hariaha.In April 2015 a formal decommunization process started in Ukraine after laws were approved that outlawed communist and Soviet symbols. Expressing pro-communist views is not illegal in Ukraine. On 3 June 2015 the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory published a list of 22 cities and 44 villages subject to renaming. By far most of these places were in the Donbass region in East Ukraine; the others were situated in Central Ukraine and South Ukraine.